Campaigners are demanding for Manchester Pride to be converted into a ‘membership charity’.
The call coincides with the charity’s bid to re-engage with the LGBT community and campaigners hope to influence decisions with votes.
Paul Wheatley, a member of the Facebook group ‘Facts About Manchester Pride’, thinks the change would help restore the perception of the charity among the LGBT community.
He said: “Recent protests and online campaigns show that people feel strongly about how Manchester Pride is currently run, and there’s a strong appetite for a new approach with better results.
“There’s one problem; we all have different ideas, therefore we need democracy. This might be the silver bullet solution.
“Rejecting the current structure doesn’t have to mean razing Pride to the ground. This way, we preserve the charity and the assets, but allow our entire community to take an active decision-making role for the first time.”
Manchester Pride has been in the spotlight of late following huge drops in charity sums and has been withholding their latest accounts.
As a result protesters have been showing their disapproval by gathering outside the charity’s office and throughout the Gay Village.
Campaigners expect the accounts to show that profits have collapsed from £161,694 in 2008/09 to £22,868 in 2012/13 while some community members believe the charity could make a loss in 2014 without intervention.
Campaigners said they have sent a formal written proposal to the board of trustees to convert the charity into a membership charity.
Manchester Pride were unavailable for comment.
Image courtesy of one eyed vision, with thanks
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